When the Wind Blows
by Newbie-Interrupters-Inc
Summary: Kai goes to live with his mother when his grandfather is arrested. It doesn't take him long to realize that something is wrong with her, very, very wrong. When the wind blows, the children will die... Kai OOC, rated M to be safe, based off novel by J.Saul
1. Prologue: The Children of Bay City Mine

I do not own beyblade. This story is rated M to be safe, but isn't too bad.

**Prologue**

About 50 years ago, Bay City was known for its bustling coal mine. The town thrived on the money received for the exported coal and sometimes even diamonds.

Hundreds of black slave children worked these mines. Hardly anyone had ever seen one of them leave, but they knew that they were down there.

No one could say exactly how many children had been in the mine on that day, April 9, 1956. The day had been clear and fresh, people were strolling about the town square. The children could be heard working below…

And then…the wind began to blow.

The foreman of the mine stood at the mouth of the town's riches, smoking a cigarette. The hot ash fell in the patches of dry, brown grass, smoldering and leaving naked patches. The wind took the ash, carrying and twisting it in the wind. Down in fell to the children below, hit a stick of dynamite…

The explosion sent the foreman flying; he was later pronounced dead on impact. The small stick of dynamite had been sitting on a cart full of coal, fueling a tsunami of rock and earth. Gravel rained down on the citizens of Bay City; children ran screaming, women stumbled around in the rubble, men's bellows to their families could be heard at any part of town. The rock continued to pelt down upon the town, growing larger and larger…

Then the dust began to settle.

People stumbled around blindly, dropping to their knees and screaming for family. Some fell to their knees to pray, hoping they could live through…

Over half the population of Bay City died that day, almost all of them children. If they hadn't been pelted to death by rocks, they had met their fate chocking in the great dust cloud.

Never had something so horrible ever occurred in Bay City.

A mass funeral would be held for the children. It was decided, since no graveyard was big enough for them all, they would be buried in the mineshaft. Their parents were horrified; they did not want their children to be buried with the slave children. Everyone had assumed every child in the mine had died, but this was not so. A group of twenty where cowering, badly injured, in a portion of the mine that had survived the explosion. The splinters of bone from the other corpses pricked them as they huddled together. They had survived, but for how long? The river of the town flowed beneath the mine, and the explosion had been deep enough. They watch their deaths in horror and the water rose higher and higher…

Of course, no in the town would be stupid enough to check. Of course the children where dead, why go after them? The truth is, no one want to save a black child, nor go into the now unstable mine…

After much debate, the mayor of the town had had enough. He ordered the rotting bodies to be put down the mineshaft and that would be the end of it.

On April 23, the children where laid to rest in the mine. They where put into mass coffins and places in the walls of the mine where the rock still fell away.

The night was beautiful and clear. Their parents sobbed with loss as they held melting candles and silver crosses.

People threw flowers into the mine, and the next funeral began. Those others who had died, sixty men, three women, would be buried in a small gravesite at the bass of the hill the mine stood on.

Dunia Kalkonov watched on as to large men lifted her father's coffin was lowered in to the mass grave. The wind began to blow. She turned from the gravesite to the mine, where she could hear the sob of the children. She scowled, good children shouldn't cry.

"Mama, why are they crying?" she asked, squeezing her mother's hand. Olga Kalkonov turned her tear stained face to her daughter. "They are sad, Dunia. They have lost their husbands and wives and-"

"No, the children in the mine," said Dunia, though knowing she must never interrupt, "The children in the mine are crying, Mama, the wind carries their voices,"

"There is no one crying in the mine, Dunia," snapped Olga sharply, "You know perfectly well that they are dead."

"But Mama-"

Olga struck her daughter hard across the face. It stunned Dunia; it had been a while since she had been so naughty she needed a beating. Olga dragged her away and hit her again, and while she knew she shouldn't, Dunia began to cry.

"Good little girls don't cry," she Olga calmly as she began to batter the girl's tiny frame. Over and over she struck Dunia, until the little girls tear began to subside. Olga left in the brush and returned to the funeral.

Dunia lay there for a while. Those children kept crying, and no one was punishing them.

"'Good children don't cry…'"

She got up, limping from her injuries, and up the hill to the mine she went.

The cries of the children echoed in the mine. She stood there, hating them. She picked up a stone and hurled it with all her four-year-old strength into the mine.

Wind stop blowing, and so did the cries.

Eventually, Dunia Kalkonov became Dunia Hiwatari. She was blessed with a baby of her own, but she did not know what had become of the baby, nor did anyone else. Rumors flew through the town, most of which said Dunia had killed her baby. Certainly, she was a very strange and vengeful woman, but she grew even stranger at times, and even stranger events would follow, especially when the wind blew.

Because when the wind blows, the children will die….


	2. Cries on the Wind

**C****ries on the Wind**

Kai Hiwatari was fourteen when he came to live with his mother. His father had left when he was ten years old.

He sat grimly in the back seat of a black Chevrolet, eyeing the hated, acid eaten manor where he had spent many of his abbey free days.

The large, old Victorian style mansion was once slate gray with copper shillings on the roof. Now it had been eaten away by acid rain and the roof was a moldy looking gray green. It leaned to one side in a tried sort of way.

The house was located on the outskirts of Bay City, in the abandoned mores that once thrived with people. It was the only home still standing after the explosion fifty years ago.

Down a hill at the end of the more, the mine stood, questioning and dark. Kai's father had forbidden him from going anywhere near the mine. Dunia used to behave very strangely whenever Kai got to close to it, especially when the wind blew…

Kai hadn't lived in this house for nearly 6 years. The house belong to his grandmother Olga, Dunia's mother. She moved in with her mother after Susumu, Kai's father, left them to pursue a career in beyblade development.

The Chevrolet pulled into the gravel driveway, scattering the sparrows and squirrels. The chuffer came around the side of the car to open the door for Kai, but he threw it open himself, nearly decapitating the poor man with the force. As he rubbed his bruised nose, he watch the young master gather his things and walk briskly up the veranda.

"Will that be all, Master Kai?" he asked meekly.

Kai didn't answer, so he took the silence as condolence. He threw himself into the seat of his car and hammered the gas. He glanced back one more time at Kai and he saw Dunia throwing her arms around her son. He shook his head sadly; the next time the poor kid would get a ride, it would be in a coffin. Children didn't last very long in this part of Bay City.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

Olga was the one who showed Kai to his room; Dunia out right ignored him after greeting him enthusiastically at the door. She chattered away to him as they climbed the stairs, and when the reached the second floor, Kai recognized the door to his old bedroom. Olga reached out to turn the knob. It turned, clicked, but the door didn't budge. Olga frowned, "What on earth…?"

Kai stared at the door, backed up a few steps and threw his body weight into the door. Nothing.

"Kai!" Olga protested as he slid to the floor. They stood there for a few minutes, then Kai ran his hand along the side of the door.

"Grandmother?" Kai said, tracing his finger along cool metal bumps. Olga leaned closer to inspect the door. Someone had nailed it shut.

And that was just the beginning.

Olga Kalkonov was described as a cruel tyrant, back in the days of the mine. Her daughter Dunia was considered the most sheltered child in Bay City. But as much as the other parents admired her for being such a good little girl, they couldn't ignore the bruises on her arms. She grew into the strangest woman, and when her baby arrived, so many people feared for it. No one surprised to learn that it had disappeared. Then the second baby arrived, along with a husband to protect it from the fate of the first, what ever that had been. No one knew what became of Dunia's baby, not even Dunia herself.

"Of course she can't sleep in there, Mama," Dunia said as a matter of factly. "It's a boy's room."

"But Kai is a boy," protested Olga desperately.

"I know my baby, Mama,"

Kai, standing outside the frame of the kitchen door, groaned loudly. Ever since he was little, his mother had flatly refused to accept that he was male. She called him 'Baby' all the time, dress him in pink when he was an infant and filled the nursery with teddy bears and dolls. And if that wasn't strange enough, when Dunia did address him properly, she didn't use a feminine name similar to his own, like Kairi. Instead, she called him Mari.

Before Kai had been born, everyone knew Dunia Hiwatari was strange, but after holding a rather tough eight-year-old boy up in the house and calling him 'Baby' all the time, the town had concluded she was just plain crazy. It seemed as though she though Kai was her first baby, the little girl who had disappeared.

Dunia heard Kai moan outside.

"Baby?" she called, "Baby, is that you?"

"Oh for heavens sake, Dunia!" said Olga, swelling with fury, "You cannot called a fourteen-year-old boy 'Baby'!"

"I know my baby, Mama, and my baby is not a boy, and she is certainly not fourteen. She cannot sleep in that room, Mama, she is too small. I'll take her to her room."

"That boy cannot sleep in the nur-!"

Dunia struck Olga across the face.

The old woman fell to the floor in shock, staring up at her daughter. Then she jumped up and cried, "How dare you strike your mother!"

Kai backed up out of the kitchen, but Dunia swept him back and held him in a way she seemed to think was protective. "You took my baby away from me, Mama. You said she was born dead. Now my baby has come back to me, and you want to hurt her?!"

"Dunia, what…I never said…"

Kai squirmed as Dunia tighten her grip. Dunia looked down in horror.

"You're trying to get away from me, aren't you?"

"N-no," Kai gasped as the grip grew even tighter. "I just-"

Kai saw white as Dunia threw him to the floor, his head cracking on the tiles.

"You did this!" shrieked Dunia, pointing an accusing finger at Olga. "You don't want me to be a mother. You _made_ my baby hate me!"

Olga ran to help Kai off the floor, but her daughter struck her again. The old woman fell aside, staring as her daughter put her arms around Kai.

"It's alright, baby." She said softly, "Mama won't let her hurt you." She kissed the place where Kai's head had struck the floor. "Mama will fix it," she murmured, "Mama will always fix it."

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Olga had though smart of avoiding her daughter the remainder of the day. Dunia had taken Kai up the room the attic, the nursery which had originally been for the first baby. Kai had spent a little while in the nursery himself. He recognized the teddy bears and dolls his mother seemed to think he would love.

The minute they had stepped inside, Dunia took Kai suitcase from him and began to unpack, folding all his clothes neatly and putting them away in drawers. Kai sat down in the rocking chair with the threadbare cushion, trying not to inhale the dust from the lace curtains. Every so often, Dunia would pause to smile at Kai, who would look the room before giving an awkward smile back.

That night, Kai slept on the floor on the nursery, beside the bassinet, which was supposedly to serve as a bed. It was only about three feet long, which would have been prefect if Kai had been the age his mother seemed to think he was.

He slept under the little flannel blanket that had been in the crib. Before falling asleep, Kai lay on the floor, trying to remember if his mother had always treated him this way. He could just barely remember, but he assumed his father had intervened, and that was how he had moved out of the nursery and gotten a room of his own. But with his father gone, his mother could treat him however she wanted. And at this rate, it seemed like Kai would be doomed to the insane fate of his mother.

Outside Dunia Hiwatari's room, the wind began to blow. A baby…her baby, was crying. The cries grew louder and Dunia got up and moved upstairs to the nursery. She opened the door to find Kai asleep on the floor. She grabbed his hair and yanked him up. Kai gasped and stuttered, "Wha-what?"

"You were crying," said Dunia calmly. "Why were you crying?"

Kai frowned, "I wasn't"

Dunia ignored him. "Good children don't cry. Only the bad, sinful, evil little children do. And they must be punished."

And with that, she threw Kai back to the floor and beat he with all the strength she had. Kai yelped and tried to cover his head a barrage of angry fists attacked him. The wind howled louder and louder, and Kai's cries grew more and more pained…

The wind stopped blowing.

Dunia stopped and stared at her son. Kai cowered on the floor, his eyes watering in pain.

"Oh baby," cried Dunia, "Oh baby, who did this to you?"

Kai stared up in confusion as Dunia pulled him into her arms. "Where you crying, baby? It's all right. Mama's here now."

Kai tensed in her embrace, but she didn't seem to notice. He winced; it was painful trying to breath with bruised ribs.

Kai managed to relax as his mother rocked him in her arms. He finally understood. As long as he didn't cry, and did everything he was told, he would be all right.

On the floor below, Olga had heard all the commotion. She wept for her grandson. As long as the wind blew, and Dunia Hiwatari walked the earth, neither he, nor any other child would be safe.


	3. Tachibana in the Quarry

Soon after, Dunia left Kai alone in the nursery. She closed the door and it clicked. Kai's eyes flew open. She had locked him in!

Kai scrambled to his feet and frantically felt along the door, which was useless since the door didn't have a knob on his side. He was utterly trapped.

Kai slumped door against the door and massaged his forehead. If he pounded on the floor, or made any other kind of noise, would his grandmother let him out? But if his mother came, he might just be beaten again.

With a sigh, Kai miserably curled up under the little flannel blanket, but not before he said a silent prayer, hoping that someone would let him out in the morning.

The sun streamed through the lace curtains, highlighting the dust in the air. Kai groaned and squinted in the light. Then he remembered the door. He turned towards it, and it was open. Had he dreamed the beating? No, he had the bruises, but what about that other dream? His mother had come up, opened the door, and stood staring at him with a strange smile on her face. Kai had schooled himself to look as if in slumber. When Dunia had left, she left the door open.

So was it not a dream? Did his mother come in and stare at him in the night? Kai shuddered at the thought. He rooted through his drawers for some clothes, put the little blanket back in the crib, then ran down the stairs.

The creaking stairs above signaled Kai's awakening, and Dunia flew to the bottom of the stairs to greet him. Kai winced as she practically jumped on him to give him a hug. As soon as she did, the phone rang. Kai was gasping for air as Olga answered.

"Kai, it's for you. Someone named Max?"

Kai wriggled away from his mother, and grabbed the portable phone. He listened for a minute, then hung up and turned to his mother.

"My friends were wondering if I could go swimming down at the quarry. That's ok isn't it?"

"Baby…"started Dunia.

"Go on, Kai, and have fun with your friends," said Olga.

Kai rushed for his swimming trunks and fled out the door before Dunia could protest.

She stared at the closed door it shock.

"Mama!" she wailed, "She'll drown!"

"He will be fine, Dunia," replied Olga, giving her daughter a hard look.

"Mama, I don't care what you say, you want to kill my baby!"

Olga thrashed out her walking stick and struck Dunia.

Dunia whimpered and clutched her face.

"You will listen to your mother, Dunia. Little girls always listen to their mothers. Now go to your room."

Dunia rose slowly from her chair in the kitchen and climbed up the stairs as if she had been sentenced to the gallows. Olga followed.

Dunia sat on her bed, whimpering over and over, "Mama….Mama…"

"He'll be fine, Dunia," said Olga sharply. Then she locked the door.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Kai met the other Bladebreakers down at the quarry, the large pond further out on the mores, in the opposite direction of the mine. He could see Hilary already strutting around in her bathing suit, with the others laughing at her for being such a peacock.

"Hey Kai!" Tyson hollered waving furiously at him.

Kai grinned in relief as he watched his friend start to jump up and down and wave him over. Then they jumped into the pond. Grinning still, Kai change quickly behind a tree, leaving his clothes on a branch, and jumped in after them. And after an hour of jumping, splashing and laughing, Kai forgot all about his mother and his bizarre night.

As Dunia lay crying on her bed, Olga did her best to ignore it. She could not allow her daughter to control Kai, like she had controlled Dunia. She made a mistake and she accepted that, but was it too late to fix?

And then, the wind began to blow.

Dunia stopped crying. Olga froze. What was her daughter going to do? Suddenly, there came a terrific crash from upstairs. Olga gasped, had Dunia broken down the door?

She heard the front door open and close. Olga fled up the stairs and stopped dead. The hall was full of splintered wood. There was a message on the wall, written in what looked like blood, "My baby is crying"…

The pillows where shredded, the down sticking in the drying fluid. Olga groaned and fell weakly to her knees. Now she knew.

The children had been stirring since they had died. Now, they had awakened.

And one of them was Dunia's baby.

And she was calling for her.

The nursery that had been for that baby still had the aura of the child. Now that the aura was disturbed, what would Dunia do?

Olga buried her face in her hands and though of the nursery upstairs. It should have always remained empty.

The Bladebreakers climbed out of the water, talking and laughing about friends, memories, previous beyblade matches.

"I should probably go home," Kai said suddenly, "My mom is probably wondering where I am,"

"Yeah, let's go." Max agreed, "Which way are you headed, Kai?"

Kai pointed in the general direction of the house.

"Aw, come on. Stay a while," Hilary begged.

"Sorry, I got to go too, "Ray said.

"So do I, sorry Hilary," added Max, "And Kenny and Tyson are coming with me."

"Um, want to come with us?" Kenny offered.

"No thanks, I think I'll stay here awhile," Hilary replied.

"Suit yourself,"

The others gathered their belongings and began to walk way on the trail in the woods. When they came to the fork, the other Bladebreakers bade Kai farewell before taking off through the woods. They invented a sort of spy game on the way, which involved lots of running and shooting each other, and Hilary was utterly forgotten.

Dunia stumbled the rough terrain through the woods, the twigs snapping beneath her feet. Red ink dripped from her hand as she wrung them helplessly around her head. Where was her baby?

In front of her?

Behind her?

Inside of her?

She saw the light ahead of her and smiled in relief.

"Mama's coming, baby," she called, "Mama's coming for you."

Hilary sat at the edge of the pond and sighed. She should have gone with the others; it was no fun by herself.

Sighing again, she turned around and got up, and after taking a few steps she winced and covered her eyes.

The wind was blowing.

There was a rustling in the bushes.

Hilary frowned, "Tyson? Max? Is that you?"

The rustling grew louder.

"Kai? Ray? Kenny? C'mon guys, this isn't funny!"

From the bushes emerged a familiar face, and Hilary sighed with relief. "Oh, hello,"

She turned to gather her clothes and felt eyes boring into her back.

"Can I help you?"

Someone grabbed her shoulders from behind.

Hilary screamed and began to thrash, throwing her clothes of the rock. She found herself being shoved face down in the pond. Beneath the water, the continued to screamed and squirm about, but the hands held her tight.

Hilary lungs burned with spent oxygen. She couldn't hold it anymore. She expelled her breath into a thousand tiny bubbles.

Suddenly a blissful peacefulness settled on Hilary. She stopped squirming.

For Hilary Tachibana, life turned gray, and then the gray to black.

It was over.

Dunia Hiwatari backed out of the quarry.


	4. Of Death and Heredity

The remaining Bladebreakers ran laughing up the trail, when suddenly, Max remembered something.

"Hey guys? I think I forgot Draceil."

"What?!" Kenny yelped, "I just gave it an upgrade!"

"Never mind, let's just go back and get it," said Ray with a sigh.

The Bladebreakers hurried back to the quarry.

The birds rose in panic from the trees as a terrified shriek arose from the quarry.

The local police had roped off the pond. It didn't take them long to ID the body. With the short brown hair and wiry body, it could be no one but Hilary Tachibana. Her hair circled her head like a halo, and she floated face down, arms stretched akimbo, as if practicing the dead man's float.

"But I just don't understand it," choked . "Hilary's such a good swimmer, I mean, was a good swimmer…"

As the poor woman was taken away, the Bladebreakers sat inside the doors of an ambulance, being treated for shock. At first, there was only silence, then…

"-NO WAY KAI WOULD DO SUCH A THING!"

One of the doctors poked his head in the back of the vehicle.

"Ok boys, what's the screaming about?"

"Oh, nothing," Kenny lied, his voice shaking, "Just nerves, you know."

The doctor's expression soften. "Alright. Just try and rest. Don't exert yourselves."

He shut the doors to give the boys some peace, and the argument began again.

"Kai did not kill Hilary, Ray," Tyson hissed.

"His mom is crazy. His grandmother is crazy. It seems hereditary, Tyson. Can we really rule him out?"

"Well, we weren't here," objected Max. "Maybe she did just drown."

The wind blew softly as the Bladebreakers huddled miserably in the back of the ambulance, grieving for Hilary.

Dunia had never felt more relieved then she had the minute her baby came back through the door. Her mother had had a great idea for the two of them. Finally, something for just her and her baby, with no one, no one, to intervene.

Dunia took Kai out back to the barnyard that stood on the more. She showed him the cows and the chickens and what to feed them, then took him to the stables.

"This will be your very own horse," she said, smiling at Kai as they reached the last stall. She watched as Kai stretched out his hand and the gentle creature nuzzled against it. "His name is Hayburner."

"I think he likes me," Kai said, as the horse nickered softly and stared at Kai with gentle brown eyes.

"He like everyone, sweetheart," Dunia told him with a smile. She turned to leave, expecting her baby to follow.

He didn't.

"Baby?" called Dunia, "Mama's going in now."

Kai hesitated, but decided it was best to follow his mother. Who knew what she would do if he didn't?

As the two walked silently back to the house, they saw something strange.

A policeman, waiting on the veranda.

The sad news of Hilary's death robbed Kai of sleep that night. He didn't understand just how it had happened; she had been alive and well only minutes before he'd left.

Kai rolled over and tried to sleep. He grabbed a pillow and pushed his face into it. It was no comfort what so ever. The entire room had a musty, dead feeling to it. Nothing could possibly be comforting.

Expect, maybe, for something alive?

Like the chicks, for example. He could bring one up and keep it in his room for company. Being the animal lover he was, this wouldn't seem too strange.

Slowly, he got up from the daybed that Olga had so generously prepared for him so he would no longer sleep on the floor. He turned the knob of the nursery door. Locked. Kai frowned and turned to the window. He opened it enough to fit through, and stared at the ground. How in the world was he going to get back up once he jumped down? Kai simply concluded he'd find some way.

Without any further debate, he jumped from the roof.

He landed silently on the ground, and hurried to the chicken coop. The birds started, then seeing they were in no danger, tucked theirs heads under their wings and went back to sleep.

Kai ducked under the low door and felt around. The sound of cheeping chicks reached his ears. He groped in the darkness, trying to locate the sound. He noticed on of the chickens was a bit more fluffed up then others. He scooped his hand under it and found a chick. It wriggled frantically in Kai's hand, so he stroked it's fluffy head till it was calm. He carried it back to the house and tried the side door. It was unlocked. He eased himself through the door, being careful not to let it slam behind him. He crept to one of the cupboards and took out all old shoebox filled with spices. He emptied the contents and set the chick inside. Keeping his tread as light as possible, he crept back up to the nursery and let himself back in nursery.

There was no way to relock it.

Well, maybe his mother have would have thought she had forgotten to lock it.

Kai sat back on his bed and opened the box. The chick was huddled in corner. He stretched his hand to touch it, but it ducked its head and scurried to the opposite corner.

Kai lifted it out of the box and held it until it was clam again. He set it carefully back in the box on the floor, rolled over, and went to sleep.

Outside, the wind began to blow

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

Olga Kalkonov waited until three to go up to the nursery. As she had gotten older, she had less need for sleep. Tonight, there was a reason to stay up.

She had heard the scuffling from upstairs, saw Kai jump from the roof, watched as he entered the chicken coop. Now she understood what he had done. Brought in a chick to keep him company.

Carefully as she could, she pushed open the door to the nursery. Kai lay sound asleep on the day bed. The spice box lay on the floor beside him. She opened the box and smiled at the sleeping chick.

Then she wrung its neck.

Dropping the dead bird back in the box and carefully replacing on the floor, she bent down and brushed Kai's cheek with her lips.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I truly am."

She left the nursery, leaving the door unlocked. Outside, the wind continued to blow, and on it, the ever-familiar sound.

The sound of a baby, crying.


	5. What Child is This?

Dunia sat at the table across from her mother the next morning. There was a strange tension in the air that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Outside, the wind was blowing softly.

"Mama…"she started hesitantly.

Olga glanced across the table at Dunia.

"…Tell me about my baby,"

Olga started and stared at her daughter.

"You mean Kai? But you see him everyday,"

"No, the-the other baby,"

The teacup in Olga's hand went crashing to the floor.

"Mama?" cried Dunia, "Mama, what's wrong?"

Olga Kalkonov went pale as she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. 'No…'

"What other baby? Kai is your only child,"

"No, the other baby,"

"There was no other baby,"

"Don't you lie to me, Mother, don't you lie!"

Olga was silent for a moment, then sighed.

"I didn't want to upset you, but there really isn't much to say. She was born dead, Dunia,"

"No. You're lying, Mother. My baby is here with me,"

"What? Dunia, don't be absurd! There is nothing more to say! That child was born dead, do you hear me? She was born dead!"

'No,' thought Dunia. "She's lying to me. My baby wasn't dead,"

Then a very peculiar look crossed her face.

"What's wrong, Mama?"

Olga frowned, "The child was born dead. That's all there is to it."

"Dead? But Mama, she's sleeping in the nursery,"

Olga stared at her daughter. Memory lapses were not unusual for her, but for an instant, for a single moment, she seemed to remember her first child. For the first time in twenty-one years, she was acknowledging the real Mari…

And then came the yells from the nursery.

Dunia flew up the stairs and burst into the nursery to find Kai kneeling over the spice box, staring at it in shock.

"Baby?" Dunia flew to Kai's side and threw her arms around him. "Baby, tell Mama what happened,'

"My-my chick died," Kai told her slowly.

Dunia peered into box at the little bird cradled in Kai's hand. Its neck was too skinny for its plump little body and its tiny eyes where popping out of their sockets.

"How did you get a chick up here?" she demanded, her voice suddenly cold.

"I-I brought it up during the day. Yesterday," Kai stuttered.

Dunia struck him across the face.

"Don't you lie to me, "she hissed. "How did you get out of the nursery?"

"The door was unlocked last night,"

Dunia struck him again.

"I did not forget to lock that door, and I won't have you wandering in the night. Do you understand?"

Kai nodded.

"Take off you pajamas,"

Kai stared at her for a moment, bewildered, then realized what was happening. She was going to spank him!

Kai pressed himself against the wall.

"Don't touch me, please…"

Dunia reached out and grabbed his shoulder. He twisted away and leapt into the crib. It groaned in annoyance beneath his weight.

Dunia stared down at him. She raised her hand and began to strike his face. Over and over she struck Kai's cheek until it was red and sore.

"Now go back to bed, and don't come down for at least another hour," she commanded. Kai nodded mutely and crawled out of the crib and wriggled under the covers of the day bed.

"As for the chick, I suppose it must have suffocated."

"I-I didn't mean to kill it," Kai mumbled.

"Of course you didn't. You loved it, and people always hurts the things they love."

Dunia picked up the spice box and left the room

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

"Mercy on us, what has that child done now?!"

"It was only a chick, Mama."

Dunia had brought down the box and had mistakenly set it on the kitchen table in her mother's line of view.

"But Dunia, look. Its neck has been wrung. I've told you time and time again for the last fourteen years that that child has been no good for you,"

"She says she didn't do it,"

"Well, if it wasn't him, then who could it have been? There is only the three of us in the house."

"Are saying that I killed the chick, Mama?"

Olga gave her daughter a hard look, "Did you?"

"Mama, I-"

"This has happened before, Dunia. Surely you remember Dinah, Kai's kitten?"

Kai. This name struck a strange sense of déjà vu in Dunia that she couldn't place. She did however; remember a child, a boy child, and the kitten.

The kitten was a charming little thing. Its breast was white and the fur on its back a rich caramel. Its eyes were the deep, rich green of emeralds.

Susumu had brought the kitten home from work on day. It had been part of a litter of the office cat and nobody had wanted her. Dunia could see the child exclaiming for joy and naming her Dinah; a name he'd heard somewhere once and thought it was pretty.

The kitten wore a string purple glass around her neck, with a silver cross dangling off with her name engraved in it. The child had played for so many happy hours in the house with that kitten, why couldn't she remember who he was?

"This has happened before," Olga repeated.

"And you remember what happened that time, don't you? Its neck had been wrung, just like the chick,"

The kitten…it slept in the room with the boy, and on morning, the house awoke to his screams. He was found in his room, Dinah lying dead on the floor…

Dunia stood up sharply from the table, let her chair scrape across the floor. She picked up the box and took it outside, lifted the lid of the trash barrel, and disposed of the dead bird.

Kai…the name continued to run through her mind. It was a name she had forgotten, but she knew was very important. She came back into the kitchen and swept up the smashed china from the floor. Kai…Kai…it was a name she must remember…

Olga watched her daughter and grimaced. She was remembering. She would remembered so many terrible thing from her childhood, and then, when the wind blew…

Olga closed her eyes and messaged her temples with her hands.

Kai lay on the day bed, staring at the ceiling. He suddenly smacked his head down hard against the pillow in annoyance, sending up a cloud of dust. Kai closed his eyes and coughed, and when he opened them again, his gaze landed on the bassinet in the corner of the room. He got out of the bed and knelt down before it, staring hard at the headboard.

And then with one finger he traced four dusty filled letters: M-A-R-I…

An hour later, Kai came downstairs fully dressed. Dunia smiled at him.

"Breakfast is ready, sweetheart."

Kai sat down at the table and stared. Sitting in front of him was a glass of orange juice.

"That's it?"

"It's bad for you to mix food while your eating," Dunia told him. "Drink your juice, and then you can have your eggs."

Kai winced. After the chick had died the last thing he wanted to eat was an egg, but he obediently drank the orange juice. Then he grimaced; there was something in the bottom of the glass.

"Vaseline" Dunia told him, "It very good for you. It lubricates the stomach so you won't have indigestion."

Kai realized he was expected to swallow the gelatinous mass. He stared at the transparent lump and poked it with a spoon. It wriggled.

"My grandfather never made me eat Vaseline,"

"Well, he probably didn't love you as much as I do," replied Dunia.

Kai winced again, "Do I have to?"

"When I was growing up, I had a tablespoon of Vaseline before every meal. Didn't hurt me, did it?"

Sighing and seeing there was no way to escape, Kai picked up the lump with a spoon and shoved it in his mouth. The flavorless slime oozed between his teeth. He ran gagging across the kitchen and spat it into the sink, but when he sat down again, Dunia had another spoonful of the stuff waiting for him.

"Don't try and eat it, think of it as a pill."

Somehow, Kai managed to force down the second does, and Dunia began serving breakfast.

First the eggs, soft-boiled.

Then a piece of toast.

Finally a bowl of cereal.

Some how, Kai managed to sit through the strange meal.

"Now," said Dunia as she began washing the dishes, "Go back to your room."

Kai frowned, "Why? What did I do now?"

A strange fury washed over Dunia. "Never you mind. Little girls shouldn't ask questions."

"I'm not a little girl."

"Yes you are," Dunia's voice struck an icy tone, "You're my little girl."

"I'm not little. I'm not even a girl."

Dunia's body tensed. She turned on Kai so suddenly that he stepped back. He cried out in horror and ducked down as a glass flew through the air and smashed into the wall behind him.

"You will not question me, and you will do as I say. Now go to your room,"

Silently, Kai left the kitchen. Olga rushed in.

"What happened, Dunia? Did something break?"

Dunia frowned. "A glass, Mama. But I'm not sure how."

Olga eyed the shattered remains of the glass. "Did you throw it at him, Dunia?"

"Mercy, no!"

"Why did you send him to the nursery?"

Dunia frowned. "I didn't."

"Yes you did. The poor child walked through the living room as if he had been sentenced to the gallows."

"I-I didn't send him, Mama."

Olga's cane came up from the floor and lashed Dunia across the face. "Don't you lie the me, child. What were you going to do?"

Dunia rubbed her cheek. "Just keep her in there, Mama. I don't want her to run away."

While the two women argued in the kitchen, Kai silently slipped out the side door.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

Olga sat down in the rocking chair in her room and gazed out the window.

Dunia had wanted to know about her baby.

She remembered the day Dunia had come home from riding in town almost twenty-one years ago, dirty and covered with straw. When Olga had tried to ask what happened, Dunia had burst into tears and fled up the stair to her room. She came down the next morning, and again, Olga tried to ask what went wrong when her daughter had gone riding.

"I didn't go riding, Mama. I didn't even go into town. I was in my room all day long."

So after, Olga became aware Dunia was pregnant. Only her great pride kept her from taking Dunia to a doctor or sending her away. To the Kalkonovs, pregnancy before marriage was unthinkable. She planned to dispose of the baby as soon as possible.

They never did find the baby's father.

Dunia seemed oblivious to it all. It seem like she had simply decided she was not pregnant.

And one night, when the wind blew strong, the child was finally born.

Dunia, unprepared for the event, had had a difficult time. At last, before dawn, the first child was born. Olga took the crying child up to the nursery and laid her in the bassinet. She stared at the baby in distaste. It was terribly homely and nothing but eyes. It's little body was wizened and shrunken as if it had lived its whole life before being born Still, it was her grandchild, probably the only one she'd ever have.

Olga crossed herself and, with a small bottle of lavender incense, christened the child Mari Dinah Kalkonov. She came back to Dunia and asked her daughter if she would like to see her baby,

"What baby, Mama?"

Olga sighed, the crying of the child was clearly audible.

"Your baby, Dunia. Your baby girl. Don't you want to see her?"

"I don't have a baby girl, Mama,"

And so she persisted this for three days, always denying the child, always Olga leaving in exasperation to tend to it. And, as if sensing her mother's rejection, the child cried more and more each day.

And then on the fourth day, the night was still. Olga woke as she heard the deafening silence, and the faint sound of a baby crying…

She flew to the window and wrenched the curtain apart. There was a woman walking across the mores, carrying a child in her arms. Olga ran up to the nursery.

The bassinet was empty.

She raced down to Dunia's room.

That was empty too.

When Dunia came in, the window blowing strong and clutching her robe around her, she smiled and said; "It's it funny how sometime you can hear sounds of the wind?"

"What sort of sounds?"

"The sound of a baby crying," said Dunia dreamily. "But it's stopped now. I made it stop."

She went to bed without another word.

And that was the last time anyone saw little Mari Kalkonov.

Six years later, much to Olga's surprise, Dunia married Susumu Hiwatari, and within a year, the second baby was born, a beautiful child.

The difference between Kai and Mari was dynamic. Mari had been shriveled and grey; Kai had been plump and rosy. Mari had had wispy, mousy brown hair; Kai had thick black and silver hair. Mari did have beautiful, sapphire blue eyes, and Kai's had been slate grey.

The doctors had told her that she had taken proper steps to prepare for Kai to be born, and that was why he and Mari had looked so different.

It was soon after this that Kai was taken to live in the abbey. His mother had started to call him Mari, and she began to do very strange things when the wind blew. To keep Kai safe, he lived with his grandfather. Kai grew to be tough and strong and immune to situations as the one he was now. But when he had returned with the Bladebreakers the previous year, the very memories that had built him up had broken him. Now he was completely venerable and defenseless against his mother's wrath.

Dunia slipped out the back door, wondering where her baby had gone. She was not in the nursery where she had been told to be. She wandered into the stables and there, in the last stalls, was her naughty baby with Hayburner.

"Oh, hi Mom," Kai said, not meeting her eyes.

"What are you doing," Dunia demanded coldly. "You were supposed to stay in the nursery."

"I know, but I got lonely. I wanted to come see Hayburner. He's my friend." Kai was shocked by the childish quality his voice took on.

The horse turned it's head to stared at Dunia. Her chest swelled tight; it was as if the animal was challenging her.

"He is a horse, and he doesn't give a damn about you. If you want a friend, you come to me."

Kai stared at her wide-eyed, and a strange look crossed his mother's face.

"Oh, I'm sorry, baby. I don't know what came over me. Of course Hayburner's your friend, but I am, too. You can always come to me."

She reached out to touch Kai, but he shrunk back into the stall.

"It's ok, baby. I won't hurt you. I love you."

She eased Kai out of the stall and said; "Go back to the house. Mama will lock up Hayburner for you."

Kai turned and reluctantly left Hayburner with his mother.

As Dunia began to walk back to the house, a long forgotten memory washed over her. A dog, a Beagle, had wandered onto the mores when she was a child. She had befriended the dog, and it made up for all the friends she had never been allowed to have. The dog slept in her room and followed her everywhere.

Then one day, she was playing with the dog. Her mother called her and called her but she ignored it. Suddenly her mother rushed into the barn with an ax and went after the dog.

And then, it's eyes fixed piteously on it's little mistress, the dog died.

Dunia turned and walked back to the barn where, so many years ago, her pet had died…

That night, the wind blew again. Dunia lay quietly sleeping in bed.

Her eyes flew open.

Mari. Kai.

Mari…she was the first child. Her mother had been the only present at her birth. Now she understood what must have happened. Her mother had taken away the baby and killed it, and that was why she never saw it.

And Kai….Susumu was his father. The child in the nursery. They sent him away to the abbey so he wouldn't be killed like Mari had been.

Slowly, she began to ascend the stairs to the nursery.

She open the door with a creak, and whispered, "Kai? Baby? Are you awake?"

Kai lay in the day bed in shock; this was the first time had called him by his name.

Dunia strolled to the daybed and picked him. Kai's eyes widened, he was not used to being held for obvious reasons.

"It's alright now, Kai. Mama's here. Mama won't let her killed you like she killed Mari. Mama loves you."

Kai eyes stung and he blinked hard so he would not cry. Finally he knew of one certainty in this strange household. His older sister Mari had once been born, lived, and disappeared on these grounds. And now he was certain of her fact.

Mari was undeniably, undisputedly…dead


End file.
